Primal Journal (sbhikes)

I suppose I should start a journal.

I'm 46, 5'3", about 160lbs at the start. I do a lot of hiking. I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in two large segments two summers in a row, totaling 3000 miles due to overlapping portions of the trail. While on that hike, I ate mostly cookies, crackers, candy and pasta. I lost weight each time and gained it all back after the hike despite my best efforts not to. On the second hike I was already gaining it back before I finished! I believe I developed a hair-trigger insulin response and basically destroyed my metabolism.

It took me 6 weeks to adjust to this diet. I am doing a low carb version of this diet, trying to keep my carbs low but not measuring anything. If I eat any carbs they are in vegetables or sometimes sweet potatoes. I usually eat twice a day.

I didn't lose any weight that I could tell for the first 6 weeks. In week 4 and 5 I suffered terrible electrolyte problems. I thought I might die. I was so weak I could hardly hold up my arms. My forearm muscles hurt and I'd get cramps in my legs in my sleep and sometimes in my feet if I turned them the wrong way. I started taking magnesium and potassium supplements but it wasn't until I started eating packets of salt off my hand that I started feeling better.

Because I wasn't losing any weight, I started taking potassium iodide in hopes of supporting my thyroid. I always test low normal on basic thyroid tests but I don't have the symptoms of low thyroid. I probably have trouble losing weight because of my age, being close to menopause and having had a hysterectomy. They left my ovaries but I think the uterus creates hormones. I feel like I have fewer than I used to.

I've gone through a phase lately of having trouble maintaining my body temperature, one moment freezing cold the next broiling hot. Waking up in the middle of the night burning up or spending the day at work with a jacket over my lap. It's getting better.

Last week I accidentally didn't eat dinner one day. I went from breakfast on Wednesday to breakfast on Thursday without eating. I felt fine. The following day I went from dinner on Thursday until dinner on Friday. I basically missed 2 of my 14 meals for the week. After that, I noticed some weight loss! Hooray!

I have had difficulty with dinnertime because my partner doesn't want to be on this diet. I at first tried to make really delicious food that I thought he would have a hard time disliking. He disliked it anyway. So then I tried to make it seem like it was low fat, but he didn't want to eat that much red meat or that much meat at all. Now I buy him junk food at Trader Joe's. Tonight I cooked myself a grass-fed burger patty with some swiss chard, portabello mushrooms, onions and a little bit of sweet potato. He got frozen pizza. How we can possibly think that's healthier than real food I do not understand. I never though frozen pizza was healthy back when I was eating it.

By the way, I licked the pizza cutter after I sliced up his pizza. Gross. How did I eat that before?

Oh and P.S. I tried to not eat anything until dinner today but got really hungry at lunch time so I ate a burger from a little shop on campus and asked them to make it without the bun. It was pretty good and I could go back to working without being preoccupied with food. If I do anymore intermittent fasting it will just have to be by chance when I'm simply not hungry. I will try on Wednesday to go without lunch and dinner, but if I'm hungry for dinner I will eat it.

I'm finally really noticing the weight loss. My baggy pants are really baggy. My tight pants feel good. My normal pants feel comfortable. I like this feeling. I will feel sad when my clothes don't fit anymore. I buy all my clothes at the thrift store and last time I was there I wasn't thrilled with the shift in fashion leftovers.

I went to the dentist today. I went a long time between dentists, something like 15 years, so I've had to get a lot of work. By the time I'm done here I'll have gotten 5 new crowns, some of which are replacements. I thought this was the last day of dental work but the dentist didn't finish and I have to go back one more time. When he gave me the numbing injections today, I freaked out on the second one. He told me that's because the injection contains epinephrine and he shoots it into an area with a lot of blood vessels. He had to wait for the epinephrine to clear before he could continue.

I cooked a small burger patty with an indentation in it that held an egg plus a few bits of the bacon ends and pieces I bought at Trader Joe's. Those things are tasty. It didn't turn out to be as large a breakfast as I feared. I plan for this to be my only meal today, with the exception of perhaps a second cup of coffee later this morning.

On a side note, I sort of put my parrot on a paleo diet. The parrot magazines insist that extruded pellet diets are healthier for parrots than seeds. Extruded pellets are just corn like dry dog food. My 21 year old conure has developed a huge fatty tumor next to her vent. I have not been able to see a vet because it requires me to take a day off work to go to the good vet in Calabassas and I've been on my 6-month probation at my new job. I decided several weeks ago to switch the corn pellets to seeds, continue to give her fruit and add eggs and meat. That bird devours beef and pork. She loves eggs. Not a fan of chorizo. Her tumor has shrunk considerably.

P.S. I almost forgot! I put on an old pair of pants on I haven't worn in months. They fit perfectly. They didn't even fit this good when I bought them originally from the thrift store. (I do all my shopping at the thrift store. It saves on tears when I inevitably spill something or a parrot bites a hole.)

My 23 hour fast yesterday went well. I had no hunger and felt energetic and alert. I think my stomach appeared to be a lot smaller this morning. I broke my fast with another all-meat breakfast (well, bacon and eggs anyway.)

Someone was giving away chanterelle mushrooms at my jam session last night. My favorite thing to do with them is cook them up with some honey goat cheese and pour that over crab and lobster ravioli. Since the ravioli is a no-no (and the sweetened cheese as well) I'm wondering if I should have a full-on cheat meal and eat some ravioli or if I should only half cheat and go ahead with the goat cheese but put it on top of something else. Perhaps it would be tasty over scallops or something.

I went backpacking and experienced that feeling of abundant, endless energy. I didn't need to eat every few hours. I could hike all day in knee-deep snow without eating and not get tired. It was great.

The other day I found a nutrition tracker at the USDA website that didn't require registration so as a lark I put in my food for the day. I was surprised that I didn't clear 1000 calories for the day. I thought I usually ate about 2000 calories, so my sense of calories must be really off.

It made me wonder if maybe my weight loss is so slow because I don't eat enough. I thought I would try eating more so yesterday I ate 3 meals. Steak for breakfast, turkey and an avocado for lunch, pork chop with small baked sweet potato and big pile of kale, chard and sundried tomatoes and wine for dinner, chocolate for dessert. I was so full I burned up in the middle of the night and then couldn't have any breakfast this morning. I brought my breakfast with me and if I'm hungry this afternoon, I'll have it for lunch. I guess I simply can't eat more and ~1000 calories a day is okay for me.

My breakdown for macros was 21% carbs, 48% fat, 31% protein. I started this whole journey trying to go higher in fat but couldn't keep it up.

I don't think the Thanksgiving holiday did anything to progress my weight loss efforts forward. It's not like I really ate extra even for Thanksgiving dinner itself. But I did eat more egg breakfasts in restaurants instead of at home and I did enjoy some nice days just reading a book out in the sunshine in between the days I went hiking or backpacking. My weight is really very stubborn. I took a picture of myself though and can see some change. Maybe I will post it.

My stupid teeth hurt from the dentist. $6000 of dental work over the last two months. I'm done with the dental work now, thank god. Maybe I can go another 15 years until next time. Then I'll be 61 years old and maybe it won't be worth doing anything to my teeth except emergency work. All my big molars are crowns now but the nice thing is that when I open my mouth, you don't see any silver, no fillings. It looks good despite being such evidence of my nutritional decrepitude. Weston A. Price has freaked me out.